this is TOOOOO FUNNY!

Hello, Friends!

I was doing a little blog hopping tonight and one thing led to another and before I knew it I had stumbled upon this video...

Seriously. Was that not one of the CUTEST things you've seen in a while???

Zach keeps going from wanting a pet snake to wanting a bird (he REALLY wants a parrot).. this video DIDN'T HELP. Heehee

random pics and a blog award..

Hello, Friends!

I'm FINALLY updating my blog with actual family photos. I enjoy capturing fun memories, but then seldom get them uploaded. (I SO NEED to get MOTIVATED)

Anyway, the first pics I'll share with you are of the boys *new* clubhouse. See, the boys have been asking Link FOR-EEEVVV-ER for some sort of tree house, fort, whatever. Well, Link's dad found this 30-something year old camper and it made for a MUCH CHEAPER clubhouse than we could've built. Here, I'll let you see for yourself. LOL!!




The REALLY FUNNY thing about their new ride is that they protect it as if it were made of GOLD or something. Check out this picture.. notice their BOOTS OUTSIDE the camper????? They don't even do that when they come in our HOUSE!




Here's a shot of Gabe lounging in the top sleeper..





this one was made from inside the camper..



and here's Zach....




These next shots were taken yesterday just after the pool people had pulled out the liner. The boys couldn't WAIT to get in there and check it out!









Now how's THIS for GROSS???? This DISGUSTING water is coming STRAIGHT from our pipes! My hubby called the folks that are over our water system last night. They'll be out today to get water samples. We were MORTIFIED! Granted, the water may look like this out of ANY water system when you're seeing this much in one place, but we're not used to seeing it.

Oh yeah, and before I go.. I wanted to share that I was honored with this blog award

from my new friend Sarah (God's Not Finished With Us Yet)

THANKS SO MUCH, Sarah! You are TOO SWEET! Now, I ALWAYS cheat and NEVER name anyone specifically for the awards I get. I just CANNOT make myself choose just a handful of people. (I'm wimpy like that) I hope you'll forgive me???

Until next time...
Love,

stationary giveaway!

Hello, Friends!

This will be another VERY SHORT post.. today has been another day FULL of all sorts of things. (Our pool liner finally gave way so we had to replace it.. the folks we bought the pool from have been down today taking the old one out and putting the new one in.. I'll post pics of that tomorrow, hopefully)

Anyway.. when I stopped in at Danielle's Blog today I found out that she's having a stationary giveaway.

(She designs these herself.. this lady is T-A-L-E-N-T-E-D!!!) If you'd like to enter her giveaway click HERE.


Okay.. I'd better RUN! I just didn't want any of you to miss out! ☺ (It's COMPLETELY FREE to enter.. you get extra entries for blogging and doing twitter posts.. other than that, no strings attached!)

Have a BLESSED DAY!

I ♥ YOU!

clay balls...

Hello, Sweet Friends!

I don't have much time this morning to chat, but I wanted to share an email with you so I'm doing that instead of the normal rambling. HA!!!

So here it is.... (and I wish each of you a WONDERFUL week!) ☺

"Clay Balls"

A man was exploring caves by the Seashore. In one of the caves he found a
canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled
clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake. They didn't look like much,
but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him. As he
strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into
the ocean as far as he could.

He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it
cracked open on a rock . Inside was a beautiful, precious stone!

Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained
a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or
so clay balls he had left.

Then it struck him. He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe
50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves.
Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of
thousands, but he had just thrown it away!

It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we
see the external clay vessel. It doesn't look like much from the outside. It
isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it.

We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or
well known or wealthy. But we have not taken the time to find the treasure
hidden inside that person..

There is a treasure in each and every one of us. If we take the time to get to
know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them,
then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth.

May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a
fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay. May we see
the people in our world as God sees them.

I am so blessed by the gems of friendship I have with you. Thank you for
looking beyond my clay vessel.

and the WINNER is...

Hello, Sweet Friends!

I'm running LATE this morning posting the winner of this book...




SOOOOOOOOOO... the winner IS..... Jennifer at Life with MY three guys. I'm heading over to Jennifer's in just a sec to tell her that she won. Thanks SO MUCH to those of you who entered! I'll be giving away this book in the next week or so...



Before I sign off, my SWEET FRIEND, Martha, (Fly Away Birdie) has honored me with an award. (THANKS, Martha!)



Martha is just AWESOME! We met through the comment section on another blog, but I was DRAWN to her because of her LOVE for the LORD and the way she takes a stand on ALL that is RIGHT. (She doesn't back down from putting the WORD out there just as is it.. no watering it down with her - love her.. LOVE HER!)

Oh, to fill you in quickly on what we've been doing the past week...

We hosted church in our home on Sunday. I was SO THANKFUL that it was our turn because the busyness of cleaning up around our place in preparation kept my thoughts on positive and happy things. Yes, I thought of Brent and MISSED him like crazy, but it didn't seem to be any worse than any other day. (PRAISE BE THE LORD!! Sometimes 'holidays' can just be too much) We had dinner with my parents and then visited Link's later that evening. The whole day was GREAT!

Oh, I can't believe I almost forgot to mention this.. my little guys greeted me Sunday morning with homemade Mother's Day cards and personalized jewelry. I got a silver necklace with a 'family tree' pendant. It's really cute.. there's a tree of sorts in the middle and all of our names are engraved around the top of the pendant. I LOVE to have (and to be able to wear) things with all THREE of my boys' names.

Of course Monday was back to school then we cleaned the basement. (Now THAT would be a BEFORE & AFTER pic! HA!!!) Most of the toys are down there and Mr. Gabe had it STREWN EVERYWHERE! It was an all day job in itself.. YIKES! (I can't believe I just admitted that online.. hehee.. oh well, it's best to be REAL isn't it?)

OOHHH.. I also did a PartyLite party. My friend Lindy is selling it. (Lindy is Carter's Mom.. his button is on my sidebar) Man, I wish we were all next door neighbors.. I'd have LOVED to have had you all over! (WE SO NEED to have a giant blog party somewhere in the central US)

I think there's been SOMETHING going on with us all week. Anyway.. those are my excuses for not being online as much. I just feel terribly guilty that some of you leave comments so often and at times I'm such the SLACKER! With summer around the corner I HOPE to be a better friend to you all! YOU guys are such AWESOME ENCOURAGERS and I'd like to be that for you as well.

Okay.. I have rambled ENOUGH for one day! I hope all is well with each and every one of you... I also hope you have an AMAZING weekend!

LOVE,

formula for babies in China.. another giveaway

Hello, Friends!

I wanted to invited you over to The Design Girl's blog to register for her giveaway. She's doing a raffle for the New Day Foster Home's formula project. (This is an organization that helps provide formula for orphanages in China) Please, if you have a minute go over and read about it on Danielle's blog. (Danielle IS "The Design Girl")

I copied this from her blog...

"To help the formula project, I will raffle off a deluxe blog makeover ($105 value).
Raffle tickets are being sold for the following prices.

1 ticket - $5
3 tickets - $10

If you sign up to sponsor formula for a child for one year (the sponsorship is $25 per month), I will give you 5 extra tickets. Do not use the chipin to become a sponsor. You can register here."



Anyway, the blog makeover (should you be the winner) is valued at $105!! This is the VERY TALENTED lady that did my blog makeover!!

Okay.. so if you wanna... go.. check it out!


Also, I posted just below about a giveaway that I'll have Friday. You can read up on it there or just click HERE to enter!

Have a BLESSED day, Precious Friends!
Love,

online educational videos and a giveaway..

Hello, Sweet Friends!

I'm falling behind again when it comes to visiting you! =-/ I DO HOPE to get to make my rounds sometime today or tomorrow. (I MISS hanging with you at your places)

Anyway, in searching for videos that make learning fun, I found some REALLY GREAT videos on YouTube and couldn't wait to share them with you!! ☺

The first one is by a guy named David Osaka. (Click on his name to see his videos) I'd never heard of this guy but LOVE the videos I've seen so far! Well, to add a disclaimer.. I'm not so sure about the way he pronounces his letters in the "Alphabet Song in Phonics". The curriculum we use teaches that "a" says, "a" - apple. The way he's saying it, it sounds like "o" in ostrich.

Now, I also found that you can watch Schoolhouse Rock videos on YouTube!!!



WHOO-HOO! I know.. I know.. I'm WAY TOO easily amused! I was SOOO EXCITED to find that someone had shared the videos that I grew up watching.

Anyway.. there is tons of stuff on tv these days, but not so much on the educational side. I just thought that finding this was too good to keep to myself. (Maybe I'll post on something a little personal and grown up next time.. ha!!)

Oh, I was about to sign off and then I remembered that I told you I'd be giving away a book by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs.



Anyway, I'm a DORK! I COMPLETELY FORGOT about it!! I'll give that away on Friday. If you want to put your name in for it, please click HERE and leave a comment or at least your contact info. (I'm "linking" you to the original post that I did when I said I'd give the book away) Some of you had already commented on that post, but if you'd like to enter again just leave another comment.. I don't care how many times you sign in)

Also, I ordered an extra copy of Paula Deen's new cookbook, "The Deen Family Cookbook".



I thought I'd share the extra with one of you. I'll try to remember to post a giveaway about that in the next week or two. (If I forget to mention it again, would someone please nudge me?? I'm SOOOOOOO FORGETFUL!)

Okay, now I'm REALLY signing off.... LOL! I guess I had more to say than I thought. HA!! I hope you all have a WONDERFUL week!

Love you!!!

to all you sweet mamas out there...

Hello, Sweet Friends...

I wanted to check in quickly to wish all of you sweet mamas (and grandmamas) a VERY HAPPY Mother's Day! I also wanted to thank those of you who've already left words of encouragement for me. It does seem that all holidays are a little more emotional and I DO THANK YOU for your prayers! We've got a full day in store and I'm SURE that all of the activity will be GREAT in keeping my mind busy. Still, thanks again for your prayers!

Now, in searching for a Mom's Day graphic for this post I ran across this one. I thought it was cute and wanted to share it with you.

Wasn't that cute??? I found it on the Answers in Genesis webpage. (It's one of my FAVORITE sites) ☺

Oh, and just to let everyone know (after my last post on all the rain we've had here) that we didn't get washed away. ☺ Most of the water was gone by the very next morning. (We live up on a hill and that photo I posted was taken down in the bottom of our pasture.. I hope I told you that in the last post?) Anyway.. I just thought I'd share that. (It's early and my brain isn't awake yet so I'm FULL of random useless info.. HA!!)

Okay, my precious friends.. I suppose I should sign off for now. I you all have a WONDERFUL day!

Anybody know how to build an ARK??

Hey there, Friends!

I thought I'd check in and show you a picture I took in our pasture down below our house today. I think we've gotten about 8 inches of rain over the past few days and the creek has SERIOUSLY flooded! The boys LOVE it when everything gets under water.. it's a wet, muddy, dream come true! As you can imagine, Gabe is just ITCHING to jump in.






The last time it rained they picked up dozens of baby fish that spilled over from our pond. They "saved" them.. SWEET HUH? Ha!!

Oh, and guess what Zach has been doing all afternoon??? Give up??? He's researching SNAKES online! YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SERIOUSLY. I want to be a really COOL kind of mom.. but a SNAKE???

This is one of the ones he found and thinks he'd like to have...

A snake??? No, REALLY!?!?!?! Oh, and in case you're wondering.. this picture was "borrowed" from google. No snakes here!!

I HOPE!

How can you die for Me? (Jesus Video)

I watched this video on tangle.com (formerly "GodTube") and wanted to share it with you. It's pretty convicting - humorous and sad all at the same time.

On a lighter note.. I've not been updating as much lately because I've been VERY BUSY going through digital design kits for my new blog. (It will be up any time... perhaps even while you're visiting)

I truly LOVE the new look and Danielle was AMAZINGLY FAST and INCREDIBLY talented! I don't know if you remember me saying that I was going to do something REALLY BIG in October??? (That's Brent's birthday) Well, I thought it'd be fun to celebrate his life this year by doing something he loved to do. Give stuff away! So, in honor of Brent I'll be giving away a bloggy makeover on his birthday. (October 28) I'll make it fun and interesting by giving extra chances to win to those of you that post challenging others to do a R.A.K. (random act of kindness) in his honor. ULTIMATELY, we're celebrating CHRIST and fulfilling the commandment to do unto others as we'd have them do unto us. Anyway.. that's a good six months from now.. but it's something to think about.

Okay, I guess I'm going to sign off for now. I need to get my little people to bed and try to hit the treadmill before turning in myself. (I'm HOPING to get a much EARLIER start to our day tomorrow)

Thanks SO MUCH for stopping by!
Love,